Chapter 27: New Companions

"Senior brother please forgive me, I wasn't thinking straight. I, I, I, I didn't mean to say that. I, I,.. I'm sorry please don't kill me." He fell to his knees in fear.

"He's close to shitting his pants, what did you say to him?" Zhai Qingshuang asked monotonously.

"I didn't say anything! I just applied slight pressure, who knew he'd be so shaken. Junior brother calm down, no one is going to kill you." He went forward to help Zhang Wuji up.

Zhang Wuji reflexively jerked backwards to dodge him and fell on his back. The moment his back hit the ground, he flipped on all his fours with a turn and raced away from the two of them, slowly getting on his two feet and picking up speed.

Shan Daoling gave a wry smile and moved to almost instantly appear infront of him.

Zhang Wuji hopelessly looked at the figure that magically appeared. With a sudden burst of rage, he executed the Obliteration Fist right to his face with all his strength.

"Calm down, junior brother. There is no need for this." Shan Daoling easily caught his fist.

"FUCKER! YOU ASKED ME TO LEAVE AND I LEFT, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?" He started flailing his free limbs.

"Whoa whoa calm down. Senior sister Zhai wanted to speak with you, and I just tagged along. I don't know what I did to scare you so much but I am not here to kill you or something, alright?" He released his fist and stepped back.

Zhang Wuji stopped and looked back to Zhai Qingshuang.

"Yes, what he said is true."

He finally let out a breath in relief. Still, he walked a bit closer to her distancing himself from Shan Daoling.

"What did you want to speak with me about?" His eyes still darted towards Shan Daoling. He kept his knees bent ready to take off at the slightest movement.

Shan Daoling looked at this and shook his head helplessly.

"Forget about that. What did you mean when you said 'they don't know the first thing about acting'."

"S-senior sister, I said it out of spite. I didn't mean in at all. Heh heh" He laughed nervously.

"Are you saying I'm a good actor?"

"Yes of course."

"I'll break your fingers if you lie."

"You just deliver dialogues mechanically. You always have the same expression and there is no voice modulation whatsoever. It's like a corpse talking." He said it all in a single breath.

"A beautiful corpse ofcourse." He felt like he said something wrong and corrected himself. Then he realised he might be misunderstood. "No.. I meant.. I'm sorry." He slapped his forehead helplessly and shut up.

"What can I do to change that?" There was no change in her voice which pacified him a little.

"I don't know, you could first work on your voice modulation, there are some exercises you could do. As for facial expressions, I don't know you could try imitating Li Xiaomei a little."

"What are the exercises?"

"I don't know, you could try putting more energy when delivering a dialogue. For that you could do some warm up exercises like I don't kno.."

"You say I don't know again, I'll break your fingers."

"You could yawn, massage your jaw, try to say 'Aaaa' at different volumes and pitches or something like that. I heard somewhere that you could speak rom your nose mouth throat lungs diaphragm to get varying pitches and effects. You could also try tongue twisters and stuff to get more control and clarity, I don.. maybe you could change the way you usually speak, make it more express.."

"What's wrong with the way I speak?"

Zhang Wuji was stuck. He just said whatever came to his mind and in the flow forgot to add a filter. He looked towards Shan Daoling who immediately looked elsewhere and ignored him.

"Um.. it's just.. you just.. I think.."

"If you don't give me a satisfactory answer within five breaths, I'll break your fingers."

Zhang Wuji was close to breaking down.

"Senior sister, I really don't know. I just said whatever came to my mind. Just let me go, I won't bother you again." He looked at her with a pitiful expression.

"I like that look. Let's keep him. He could teach us acting and with his help we could make Mei'er's wish come true." She turned to Shan Daoling and said.

'What do you mean 'keep him'? Whatever as long as my fingers are fine.'

"What about his ulterior motives?" - Shan Daoling

"What ulterior motives? You are the one who has a thing for a little girl you perverted asshole." He shouted in anger before quickly moving behind Zhai Qingshuang. Here's someone wanting to keep him alive and finger-with for his non-existent acting methods, how can he allow some pervert to change that. A jealous strong pervert at that.

"What are you talking about?" Shan Daoling asked puzzled. "Why do you keep calling me a pervert?"

"Yeah, why is that?" Zhai Qingshuang also turned towards him curiously.

'So you could display curiosity huh?' Zhang Wuji looked at her clearly expressive face.

"Senior sister, this guy has a thing for junior sister Li and asked me to back off the moment he saw me with her. I told him I was there only to learn alchemy but he was relentless. Junior sister Li is so pure and innocent, if with his thoughts he is not a pervert then no one is."

After he said that, there was no reaction from either of them. He looked at them puzzled waiting for some kind of reaction.

"*cough* junior brother, I think you have misunderstood. Mei'er had tried multiple times to recruit disciples for theatre. Which obviously failed. She's mostly in contact with Pill House related disciples. Alchemists and apprentices are busy with alchemy so she tried teaching aspirants in exchange for them doing theatre. But disciples ignored her because of her young age which they translated to inexperience and incompetence.

With no other choice she started disclosing her background which her father strictly prohibited. That worked and she was happy with the inflow. The disciples too were happy with the added backing. This continued till her father found out. He took immediate action and kicked every disciple thus added to the group. Then he punished her by getting her into apprenticeship program. Before that he just prohibited her from speaking of her background but gave her all the perks of having one.

Then he gave the two of us the task to screen the disciples she recruits. That is all I did. I had no intention to shoo you away. I just applied slight pressure to make sure you don't lie and if you do, the added burden could make it easier for me to catch your lie. By the way, you didn't lie, so I won't hurt you don't worry." He smiled reassuringly.

"So you're saying she really is a daughter of some bigshot and her Master is a grade four alchemist?" 'That's a solid background! Thank god I chose to believed her and be fooled rather than miss the chance and regret.'

"She didn't tell you?" Shan Daoling was puzzled. She wouldn't have hidden the fact if it could help recruit someone.

"She did, but she didn't feel like a young lady. I mean it should be easy for her to find people to act. She didn't have to negotiate with a random guy like me. Also she didn't have access to outer sect disciple records. I mean come on it's just outer sect records, you know?"

"She can't use her background. Her father's really adamant about such things. Also Master is not yet a grade four alchemist."

"Right I misspoke sh.. Master? Yours too?"

"Yep. I'm Li Xiaomei's senior disciple brother. Sect's youngest grade two alchemist in this generation. I'm sure I won't be for long though. Mei'er is really talented." He smiled proudly.

"Really? She's fourteen and hasn't yet reached level seven. There's more talented disciples in the outer sect." Zhang Wuji asked doubtfully.

"Talented in alchemy. Once she reaches level seven, she'll immediately become a grade one alchemist after which her journey would be smooth sailing. When she enters qi condensation, she could choose a technique centred around alchemy. You wouldn't understand. She isn't as interested in cultivation as in alchemy otherwise with her fourth grade spirit root she would've long reached seventh level." First time since meeting him, did he see his face without a smile. He noted it down mentally and reminded himself repeatedly to speak carefully.

"Enough about that. Are we gonna keep him or not?" Thankfully Zhai Qingshuang interfered at this time.

"Sure why not, if we find his intentions to be impure later, we could just deal with him then." Shan Daoling had his smile back on but that didn't stop Zhang Wuji from shivering at the sentence.

"Why are you all so eager to waste time acting?" He gathered all his courage to ask this question that has been bugging him for a long time.

"Junior brother, do not underestimate acting, Daoist Duanmu Huo realised his dao using this method. It is one of the 108 ways prescribed by great cultivators from time immemorial to temper one's dao heart. It also happens to be a great pastime to relax your mind after long periods of cultivation." Shan Daoling put his hand on Zhang Wuji's shoulder and seriously said.

"As for us sigh, Mei'er's father once took her to the Golden Sun Empire. There they saw a drama which she loved. She wanted to experience the same back home and went straight to the White Serenity City theatre. They did only opera there.

She tried to persuade the owner to do a drama without all the singing. You must know the theatre is supported by Elder Wu, there is no way the owner would be scared by an outer disciple and that's what she was without her father supporting her.

The opera is an ancient traditional art, and Daoist Duanmu Huo had practiced the same. The owner was immovable. Finally she challenged him to a duel, acting kind. She has two years to prepare, at the end of which both of them will present an act, the collections to which would determine the winner. If she wins, the owner has to do atleast one drama per month.

She personally went to Elder Wu to make this happen. She asked her father for help but he said this was all a waste of time and that he would take her to the Empire every now and then to see a drama if she wants.

This pissed her off and she hasn't been talking to her father for the past few months. By the way, if you could change that, uncle will owe you one, and that is enough for you to make a lot of previously impossible things possible." At this point Shan Daoling took a breather and signalled Zhai Qingshuang to continue.

"She made a crew with me, her bodyguard, him, her senior disciple brother and two mortals from the theatre who were willing to do drama. The rest you know."

"Senior brother, about tool refining being easier..." He looked at Shan Daoling to clarify what he said earlier.

"It is true. The sect is not that particular about grades as the Guilds. As long as you make one grade one pill that is required in great quantities, you are considered a grade one alchemist. The Alchemy Guild require you to be able to make multiple pills and be proficient in a lot of fundamental knowledge. There are even more conditions one has to satisfy to grade up. That is why an Alchemy Guild badge is considered more honorable and authoritative.

Similarly for tool refining all you need to do is be familiar with a few materials and inscriptions enough to make a single kind of grade one weapon and you are good.

Alchemy indeed has a smaller margin for error but with tool refining, you need a lot of practical experience in blacksmithing, carving and other disciplines which are time taking. Since you only need it as an entry pass, tool refining is still the better choice if you are willing to work hard. You could also learn some body tempering manuals that show great results with tool refining to speed up your cultivation."

"Okay. Thank you for the advice." Zhang Wuji felt a little lost. He had already taken a step on the path of alchemy and didn't want to change right away.

"Association with Li Xiaomei will take care of most of your resource needs. From what I understand after hearing to you two, you need an auxiliary art to continue as a disciple when you reach twenty, so it doesn't matter whether it helps increase your cultivation speed or not. Also the boost provided by tool refining is nothing to take note of. All you need to learn is making one pill. With Mei'er and fourth brother helping you that's a piece of cake. Clearly alchemy is the better choice for you." Right at this time he heard an angelic voice showing him the right path. He instantly decided to continue walking on it.

"Thank you senior sister Zhai. Senior brother Shan, I think I'll continue with alchemy."

"Great. Now about those exercises.." Shan Daoling watched speechlessly as the cold beauty took Zhang Wuji back with her to the Pill House and followed them.